Thursday, October 25, 2007

If I hear one more cricket analogy...

The political campaigns have been running here seemingly forever and also 'officially' started a few weeks ago.

There seems to be some fetish for the great cricket analogy, especially by John W (bastard cousin of Georgie).

The irony is not lost of the general population - I hope.

Every other sentence seems to be prefixed by 'To use a Cricket Analogy...' so I will add one more to the mix.

The Australian Federal Election will be won or lost on how many extras that are thrown down the pitch. NB would seem particularly applicable.

The latest discourse that seems to have been missed as a political opportunity is that WorkChoices is touted by the Liberals as encouraging real wage growth. That is, more jobs, higher wages, better conditions, etc since it's inception.

Yet it's potential repealing by Labour is lambasted by the Libs - almost in the same breath - as being wage inflammatory (?)

The worst of all is the generalisations. Unions are being painted universally as thugs... similar to how the ACTU painted business people as inherently greedy and malicious.

The lesser of two evils is still evil...

It would be nice if the negative thugishness of politics became legally binding. ie. a lie in a political campaign by a political party and/or interest group is punished just as a misleading advertisement would be.

Punishment should be both financial and restrictive - ie. punishment for the broadcaster and/or publisher as well as the advertiser and no advertisements at all from involved parties for a prolonged period. Admittedly holding broadcasters to account for others misdeeds would seem harsh but scrutiny from the media (as the outlets predominantly are) is essentially what is required.

The classic example is the '70% of Labour's Front Bench are/were Union Officials' -- this has since been shown as a blatant lie but no retraction and/or correction is required.... next will be 'Kevin Rudd is really a flesh-eating Zombie' .... 'John Howard will swallow your soul', etc, etc.